This week there has been a lot of discussion and supposition among webmasters and SEO’s about over optimisation. Earlier this week many webmasters reported that their sites had encountered massive drops in rankings or were even delisted.
The theory was this was a new Google “Over Optimisation Penalty” or a Google Unnatural link penalty, as recently Matt Cutts (Google’s Head of Webspam) commented that Google would be looking at sites which had overoptimised and Webmasters have been receiving messages (through the Webmasters Tools) regarding unnatural links that google has detected.
Later in the week though Matt Cutts clarified https://twitter.com/#!/mattcutts/status/192746565574721536 that there was an error in their algorithm which was marking some live domains as parked.
So where does that leave us? Not everyone believes things are back to normal, and indeed many SEO’s are writing that this may have been a test of a google algorithm not a mistake. Either way it is generally believed that google will start to penalise “Over Optimisation”. So how do you get your SEO “just right”, not to hot, not to cold but just right. Well SEOBook.com have published the Goldilocks SEO Infographic.
This infographic looks at different elements of Search Engine Optimisation and details what would be too much, and what wouldn’t be enough. I think I can summarise this by saying just use your common sense, if it looks spammy or has only an SEO purpose, then expect google to treat it that way!
What are your tips for getting SEO “Just Right”? Leave a comment
Charles Barsley works in eCommerce and in his occasional blog writes about his interests of eCommerce, Search Engine Optimisation, Photography, Cycling and anything which catches his interest!
I have a 2 keyword website that was ranked very high because of that domain but I thought I a was too safe because of that domain and guess what I have dropped in the last update. I was thinking about your strategy and it makes total sense to win long term. I think if google continue this way many websites that I know of will drop big time.
Hi Sharon,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. It’s interesting to hear from someone who has hands on experience of the changes, I agree with your comment that if google continues many websites will drop, so many websites are built over optimised onsite for one keyword but have no Domain authority or inbound links.
Though with good Onsite SEO if these same webmasters can use a slightly more varied approach and link build surely the rankings will come back?